


and i'm home

by gokuharas



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: AU - Soulmates, Multi, Soulmate AU, also im sorry for the summary im tired and bitter, major ndrv3 spoilers, there are lots of sets of soulmates but most arent actually couples so i wont tag em, this is not fluff. do not doubt me. this is n
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 03:11:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10778310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gokuharas/pseuds/gokuharas
Summary: (MAJOR NDRV3 SPOILERS!)Angie Yonaga paints a sky of stars across her skin, and a pair of twin hearts appear on the back of her hand.She giggles as her chest does a funny little flip, and she paints a matching yellow heart beside them. Her soulmates really are the most wonderful people in the world.





	and i'm home

For as long as she can remember, Angie has been covered from forearm to fingertip in paint.

Back when she was just starting to learn the art, she'd often tried finger painting, dipping each of her fingers in a different colour and streaking rainbows across sprawling sheets of canvas paper. By the end of it, she'd be covered in smears of pigment, reds and blues mixing together where she'd wiped her hands on her legs to create bursts of indigo and violet.

Somehow, though, the marks always seemed to disappear within the hour, whether or not Angie bothered to wash herself off.

Sometimes writing would appear on her hands, too, even if she was sure she hadn't put it there herself. Large, curly strokes of sparkly green ink would simply appear across her skin, forming symbols she couldn't recognise nor understand.

It was when she showed the writing to her mother that Angie finally learned about soulmates.

\---

By the time she turned ten, Angie was spending all the time she could indulging in the arts. Her room and even her whole home were covered in the tools of the trade - pastels and charcoals and brushes and chisels and even a few copic markers she'd been lucky enough to receive for her birthday, much to the dismay of the older children in her school art club.

Painting was by far her favourite, though. Drawing was certainly entertaining, and sculpting always came naturally to her, but when Angie painted, she could create tumbling landscapes of trees and flowers and clouds and lakes that seemed to glow with life.

The main reason she _really_ liked it, though, was because she could paint all over herself, too. Barely a day went by where she didn't have a sunlit sky or a coral reef painted on her arms by nightfall, and though the artwork would inevitably end up disappearing off of her skin by the time she woke up, she never missed the few glittering green hearts that dotted her wrists in their place. The paintings were for her soulmate, after all.

She'd known for ages now that she and her soulmate couldn't speak (or rather, write) to each other properly. Whoever was on the other side of that viridian pen was living in Japan, not to mention only able to write in Japanese save for a few offhanded English phrases, so when the pair talked it was without words. Angie would stay up far past her bedtime to paint little fruits and cats and sea shells all over her arms, and the sparkly green ink would appear in the shapes of nunchaku and flowers and cute dresses, drawn with less skill but just as much love.

Other times, Angie would try to learn Japanese, and would write short sentences in a metallic gold pen her mother was _sure_ was at least slightly bad for her health (not that Angie cared) as she tried to figure out stroke orders and sentence structures. Her soulmate would respond with slow strokes, drawing out kanji with patient precision, and Angie would copy them back, which was always responded to with a ton of '!!!!!!'s and scribbled hearts that would leave a happy bubbling joy in her chest.

\---

It wasn't until a while after she turned twelve that what Angie liked to call 'a true miracle from God' happened.

Angie had never minded school much - it seemed like her soulmate was usually sleeping until about an hour before she was let out, so she could spend her time at school with her friends and then have all the time she wanted to paint on her arms once she got home.

The bell had been just a minute from ringing when ink started to appear on her wrist, and Angie pulled up her sleeve to see what it was.

There, just at the hem of her uniform's cuff, was small, neat handwriting in a fine red ink.

Angie had prayed that night, thanking God for blessing her with two incredible soulmates.

She really was lucky.

 

\---

 

Darkness envelops her, and for a moment Angie wonders if this is how it feels to drown.

Then she leans forward and the wall gives out in front of her.

Before she can even think to brace herself, she's being caught mid-fall by a pair of pale, sturdy arms.

 

The arms swiftly prop her back up on her feet and retreat, and when she manages to gather herself enough to look up, Angie is met with a pair of bright scarlet eyes.

"Harukawa Maki," the person in front of her offers without hesitation, "SHSL Nursery Teacher."

Angie shakes her head in a blur and examines her classmate excitedly. Despite being a nursery teacher, the girl gives off a severe aura, her black and crimson seifuku almost menacing in its colour. It reminds Angie of those video games where people's blood is actually a deep red instead of bright pink, which she honestly thinks is a pretty weird concept, but whatever.

More to the point, the nursery teacher's looking at her with confusion that's starting to border on concern, so she should probably introduce herself.

"Konnichi- _what's up_?" she finally says, and a spark of displaced terror makes itself known in Maki's eyes, "Angie Yonaga is here! Thanks for catching Angie, by the way! If she'd broken her arm, she and God wouldn't be able to make any art for weeks, so we're really thankful, Machi!"

"It's Maki," the other girl mutters, but her words fall upon deaf ears. Angie spins on her heel to take in the space around her.

The room the pair stands in is dark, each window barred and covered in thick coils of red barbed wire. Vines hang from the ceiling, draping down to strangle dusty old school desks in their foliage. Behind the pair is a bright green screen, and right next to that, a pair of open lockers.

Honestly, Angie thinks the whole place is kind of a mood killer.

Maki shuffles over to the windows and prods at the wires in thought, only to turn around with a pout.

"Hm. Looks like we're stuck in here, huh..."

Angie shrugs. "Mm, Angie guesses so! Still, though, it's not too bad! There could even be art supplies here somewhere, yeah?"

"...Sure," Maki supplies, only half listening. She walks over to the other side of the room and gestures to the door.

"There doesn't seem to be anything in here, so I'm going to leave. You do what you want."

Angie nods, a complacent smile upon her face. "Yeah, yeah! Angie'll go with you, Maki!"

The taller girl huffs and goes to open the door handle, but as soon as she looks down, she stops dead in her tracks. Curious, Angie skips over and peers at Maki's hand.

 _'Saihara Shuuichi',_ the purple ink appearing on her skin says, the words (name?) printed out in a neat, violet cursive.

"Ooh, what's that?"

Maki stares a moment longer before snatching her arm away from the artist. "Not a clue."

The nursery teacher opens the door with speed Angie's pretty sure normal humans aren't meant to possess, and the pair make their way out into a hallway covered ceiling to floorboards in plants.

Angie manages to take two steps forward before her foot catches on a vine and she falls flat onto the ground.

"Can't be there to catch you all the time," Maki says from above her. Angie just giggles and hops back up.

"Huhhhh... Angie's never seen this place before. Have you?"

Maki tugs at a dark bang of hair. "No. I haven't."

The two look around for a moment longer before Maki sighs and turns back to her white-haired companion.

"...I'm going to go look around. I'll see you later, Yonaga."

"Sounds great! Bye-onara, Maki!"

Maki raises an eyebrow at the girl, but says nothing as she walks away. Angie waves at her for a moment, then twirls around and starts strolling down the other end of the hallway, cautious of the lengths of vine beneath her feet.

Before long, she runs into a pair of students, one with a black cap that hides their eyes and the other with pretty music note pins in their hair that Angie thinks are _super_ divinely inspired.

"O-heyooo," the artist coos, "Angie Yonaga is, like, totally blessed to meet you guys! God must be on her side today!"

The blonde student smiles. "Ah, Angie-san, right? It's nice to meet you. I'm Akamatsu Kaede, SHSL Pianist!"

Angie beams at Kaede and praises her for her talent before she turns to the dark-haired kid. "Mmm, and who are you? Angie hasn't seen you before either, after all!"

"Uh. Saihara Shuuichi. It's very nice to meet you, Angie-san."

Angie doesn't let the boy's stiff and anxious demeanour put her off, and she talks to the duo for a while before they part ways and she skips off to find other new people.

A few steps later, though, Angie's mind goes back to the writing on Maki's hand.

She looks over her shoulder at Kaede and Shuuichi, and at the way Kaede pockets a purple pen with a flourish.

Angie wonders if either of her own soulmates might be in the same building, and gives a happy little jump. If she's so lucky as to meet them when she's only sixteen, God really _must_ be on her side!

 

\---

 

Maki doesn't seem that pleased when Angie sits down right next to her at breakfast the next day. She continues to be not pleased through all of breakfast, and even after everyone's finished talking as a group and off doing their own thing.

She doesn't seem that surprised either, though, and has yet to brandish any sort of weapon against Angie's throat in an attempt on her life, so it's probably not a big deal.

Instead of trying to make Angie bleed out in the middle of the cafeteria, Maki just keeps staring at the other end of the table, where Kaede, Rantarou and Shuuichi sit as Kaede draws out something on her arm and chats excitedly about some song called 'Clair de Lune'. Occasionally Maki will glance down at her own arms folded in her lap, sigh, look to Angie as she paints stars all over her stomach, sigh again, and then look around the cafeteria, but even then Angie's pretty sure it's just her head moving and not her eyes.

With far too much exuberance, Angie throws her paintbrush down on the table and starts tapping Maki's shoulder.

"What do you want?"

Angie squirms in her seat, legs swinging against the chair's legs. "Ooooh, Maki, is that what Angie thinks it is?"

At that, she points at one of Maki's forearms, and Maki scrambles to roll down her sleeve. Before she can, though, Angie already has a hold of the caretaker's arm, and she holds it out just beneath the table's surface as she scans the purple symbols scrawled on her skin.

"Are these music notes?"

Maki's nose crinkles up into a sneer. "Don't talk too loud. They'll hear you."

Angie leans in, obnoxiously whispering as she keeps her eyes on Kaede. "Angie thinks you're less concerned about the 'they' here and more just about _her._ "

Maki turns her head away from Angie in an attempt to gain some distance and mutters something.

"You're gonna have to turn around or speak up, Maki! Angie can't hear you. Even God can't hear you, and he can hear everything!"

Tension sets in Maki's shoulders, but she turns back to Angie nonetheless.

" _Listen_ ," she hisses, " _just-_ "

Another music note appears on the lines streaked across Maki's arm, and she puffs out her cheeks as Kaede begins to explain the virtues of learning to play different genres of music.

"...Fine. Akamatsu is my soulmate. Are you happy?"

Angie tilts her head. "Are _you?_ "

Maki glares at the table for a moment before casting her cherry eyes back to Kaede, and Angie watches with caution to see if the pianist's hair will catch on fire. It doesn't (much to both Angie's relief and childlike dismay) and Maki gets up, dragging Angie out of the room by the arm she's still holding onto.

When they emerge in the garden, the pair quickly find a corner to cramp themselves into, dark and out of sight.

Angie lifts a finger to her chin as she bends towards the other girl.

"...So, like, are you gonna kill Angie now? Because honestly, Angie doesn't think you could get away with it. God can't talk to anyone but Angie, since nobody else is enlightened yet, but like... Shuuichi's a detective, so he could probably work out who it was. Even if you get to leave after you do it, everyone will hate you forever."

Maki's eyes widen in an unspoken sentiment of 'what in the fresh hell is wrong with you', but her expression quickly returns to the stone cold one she usually wears.

"No, I'm not going t..." Maki trails off, thinking for a moment before correcting herself, "-I'm _probably_ not going to kill you. If you tell anyone about this, though, I can't make any promises."

Angie nods eagerly, and Maki continues.

"How much do I have to tell you before you'll leave me alone?"

"Eh, like five minutes of talking or whatever is cool with Angie. Angie just wants to hear the deets."

"...Deets," Maki mutters under her breath as she brings a hand to her temple. "Alright, fine."

"Great then, start whenever you're ready!"

Maki takes in a breath, and Angie interrupts with an urgent "Wait a second!"

The caretaker looks at her in alarm, then watches as the artist plunks herself down in the grass, patting a spot adjacent from herself on the turf. Maki gives her a look, but sits down anyway.

"So... Angie guesses the real question is, like, do you like Kaede? As in, do you _like_ like her?"

"...No."

Angie squishes her cheeks with a gasp. "Whaaaaa?"

"Look, I just- I don't _dislike_ her or anything. She's just... pushy."

Maki looks down to where a new line of notes is appearing on her arm in place of the old ones. "And I don't think she likes me at all, anyway, so it's not like it matters."

Angie gasps. "Huuuhhh? Of course Kaede likes Maki! Kaede likes everyone! Angie knows so herself, because Kaede said she wanted everyone to live through Monokuma's killing game together! You were there for that, even!"

"Wanting someone to live and liking them are very different things," Maki mutters quietly. "There's a big gap between respecting someone as a human being and as a person. Akamatsu just happens to be one of those people who believes that nobody should have to die."

"And isn't Maki like that, too?"

Maki looks Angie dead in the eye, and for a moment, Angie can see every moment of her life flash before her eyes in a moment of pure terror, adrenaline and clarity. Then the caretaker blinks, and her seconds-before-death epiphany is lost.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess."

Angie hunches down an inch or two, but stays silent.

"Anyway, my point was that there isn't any point at all. Akamatsu and I might've talked to each other before this whole killing game, and sure, we might’ve said that we wanted to meet each other or that we loved each other, but now that we've met I'm starting to think that whatever was supposed to be between us just... isn't. Not in this lifetime, at least."

Maki props herself up into a kneel. "It's unfortunate, not to mention inconvenient and frustrating, but I can't go back and do something that might turn out better, so."

The caretaker spares one more glance at Angie, and she can't help but think that Maki's eyes look incredibly sad.

"Forget it. Bye, Yonaga."

With that, Maki marches off in a storm, her hair swaying behind her in locks that seem to grasp out at any hope that might be left beyond her reach.

Angie looks down at her stomach and sees the same spatter of stars she painted there only ten minutes ago, finally dry.

By the time she goes to change into her pyjamas that night, though, the stars are gone.

\---

It takes five days for Rantarou Amami's body to turn up in the library.

After the body discovery announcement goes off, the game room goes dead silent, the cheerful announcement stopping everyone in their tracks. Gonta bursts into the room, raw terror emanating from every square inch of his body, and he scrambles for the door in a near-breakdown flurry as he shouts at everyone to follow. The trio of girls all share an apprehensive glance and Angie rockets out the door.

Despite the terrible announcement, Angie allows herself to smile and enjoy the run over to the library. She figures if someone has died now, it must be one of God's blessings. After all, if everyone else is safe thanks to one noble sacrifice, it's the best case scenario.

As the four enter the library, Gonta sprints over to where Tenko, Kaede, Momota and Shuuichi all stand. 

A horrified scream tears through the atmosphere as the entomologist catches sight of the pooling splatter of blood collecting around the corpse of their former friend lying limp on the cold, wooden floor.

Silence settles upon the library, but fear and deceit hang heavy in the air, thick enough to choke on.

Angie observes quietly from her perch on a bookshelf as Kaede and Shuuichi hover over Rantarou's corpse with caution. From where she sits, she can't quite see everything, but the boy's ever-paling skin is clear as day.

Not a single mark of ink adorns his body. For the first and last time, Angie feels a twinge of genuine sadness for his death.

The pair of investigating students exchange a few whispered words as Kaede steps back from the body and scans her gaze across the library. Eventually, her eyes meet Angie's, and she makes her way over.

"Hey, Angie-san," Kaede says, craning her neck slightly to look up at the other girl, "You... wouldn't happen to have an alibi for the time of Amami-kun's murder, would you?"

Angie grins as she leaps down onto the floor, eyeing Kaede's rolled up sleeves and bared arms with starved curiosity. "Oh yeah, totally! Angie was in the game room doing strategy planning. God told Angie that it would be best to come up with a defence, after all."

Kaede nods. "Mm... Harukawa-san, Yumeno-san, Chabashira-san, Gonta-kun and Momota-kun were all there too, right?"

"Yeah, yeah! Gonta was, like, in the movie room next door for most of the meeting because he was scared or something, and Tenko and Kaito kinda left to go look for other people, but everyone else was there with Angie the whole time, so they're all totally cool."

A hesitant smile crosses Kaede's face. "Thanks, Angie-san."

Angie waves. "No problemo!"

As Kaede walks away, Angie ducks down to get a better look at her forearms. She sees purple ink there for just a moment, but within a second, it disappears right before her eyes.

\---

The class trial room is like nothing Angie has ever seen before. Beautiful stained glass windows cast tall streaks of everything from magenta to blue onto the floor, flooding the room in an eerie glow amidst the sheer white light filtering in from the dome overhead. In the room's centre, sixteen podiums float - literally _suspended in mid-air_ \- over a chasm as bottomless as the ceiling is infinite.

Angie flutters around the room in a breeze, taking in all of the architectural wonders and incredible glasswork and perfectly structured throne with just the right colour palette to really enforce that 'tyrannical monarch' undertone that Monokuma loves so much, and then Maki is grabbing her by the sleeve and dragging her to a podium and the next thing she knows she's staring right across the room to Tenko at the stand opposite hers.

Tenko's eyes flit to Angie's stomach briefly, and Angie looks down as well to find that the stars she's been painting there for the past two days are still peppered across her torso. She looks at the aikidoka and gives a cheery grin, and she returns it with a wobbly smile.

Maki steps up onto the trial stand right next to Angie's, and she snaps out of her exchange with Tenko to gaze cryptically at Maki instead. 

Angie swats at Maki's arm a couple of times before gesturing to the caretaker's bare forearms with a puzzled quirk of her head, but Maki just looks away.

The class trial starts with a bang, and the whole thing seems to fly by right before Angie's eyes. Again and again, accusations are thrown and then torn down, Kaede and Shuuichi acting as the driving force through the whole affair. 

That's probably why when Shuuichi pauses to say something important, everyone listens.

The detective's sights seem to lock onto one point with a solemn confidence, and it's then that Angie finally catches a glimpse of his eyes - as bright and gold as champagne. They hold a glistening light, the mark of anyone yet to lose their soulmate to the call of mortality, but they lack true luster.

Shuuichi nods almost imperceptibly and lowers his hat, and when he looks back up there's a firm set to his jaw the likes of which Angie has never seen.

"Akamatsu-san killed Amami-kun," Shuuichi announces, and his voice echoes through the trial room as though it were an empty cathedral.

Dappled light pours down from above in sudden cascades of platinum, gold and white. Kaede laughs.

"Seriously? You've gotta be kidding me, Shuuichi! There's no way I'd do that!"

Shuuichi recoils, but the drive in his stance stays firm, and in that single moment Angie comes to a realisation of finality.

She looks up at Maki and sees the shine starting to sap from her eyes all too soon, and she knows that Maki's realised it too.

Kaede Akamatsu isn't making it out of this room alive.

\---

The time to choose a suspect comes and goes, and soon enough everyone is leaving their podium to say their farewells. Gonta and Tenko are screaming at Monokuma to take them instead with tears running down their faces. Ryouma, Himiko and Korekiyo stand in isolation, expressions flat but regretful nonetheless. Shuuichi is distraught, holding onto Kaede's hands with what little strength he can seem to muster as she spills out her heart to an audience that she's about to die for.

Amongst the turmoil and turbulence, Maki stares at her feet as if she's standing on air.

Angie watches as the girl clutches at her arm like a lifeline, listens as she asks if Angie has a pen.

She hands her one with a smile, and Maki uncaps it with scarily steady hands.

Monokuma slams his gavel onto the button in front of him, and a chain shoots from the ceiling and straight for Kaede as though pouncing on vulnerable prey.

Maki finishes writing with just enough time to spare and caps the pen again with a final snap, and as Kaede reaches out to Shuuichi, she looks at the back of her hand with sheer, complete, terrified _shock_. Her gaze frantically searches the room and finally meets Maki's in a single second of proximity before Kaede is whisked away to the sky above, thrown onto a piano and cruelly flung back and forth until the ruthless display becomes Angie's second time seeing a corpse in the flesh.

Angie looks over to Maki after the execution comes to a close, and takes the caretaker's hand in her own as she lifts it to her face.

Upon her skin, a simple phrase is printed in clear, almost impossibly perfect handwriting.

_'sorry.'_

Angie goes to say something to the girl, but as she looks up at her she catches a glimpse of Maki's irises, now the dull red of dying embers and dust, and she comes up short. 

Maki takes her hand back with an exhausted tug and trudges over to the elevator doors.

\---

The eventual elevator ride back to the surface is full of half-hidden sniffs and choked-back sobs, and Angie finds herself wondering just how many more people the group will have to lose before they can find peace within their ranks.

As she steps back out into the garden, though, Angie Yonaga is blessed with divine guidance, and she starts to form a plan.

Nobody else has to lose their life so long as they can cooperate. Nobody else has to lose another friend, another partner, another soulmate.

Angie looks up to the sky above her, shining with the stars of lost souls, and she knows what she must do.

Together, she and God are going to save everyone, whether they like it or not.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading and welcome to maki's home for unfulfilled childhood dreams nyall


End file.
